Numb
by dharmamonkey
Summary: Booth reflects on the long months since Brennan's flight.


**Numb**

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**By:** dharmamonkey  
**Rated:** M  
**Disclaimer:** Hart Hanson owns Bones. But people like me who play in his sandbox give you all those little moments that Hart and friends leave out. In this case, insight into what might've been going through Booth's head in the days before 8x1.

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**A/N:** _I can't say this is my best work, but my muse coughed it up, and I wanted to share it. I hope you find it of some merit as we endure the last few days of the S7/S8 hiatus._

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It was a Tuesday night, and the Founding Fathers was mostly empty. I sat at the bar, by myself. It was just me and one other guy. Van Morrison was playing soulfully on the jukebox.

I threw back the last swallow left in the glass of whiskey and watched as the bartender, Sal, slid another one across the bar. I picked up the fresh glass of Glenfiddich, a generously free-poured double, and held it in front of my mouth as I let the whiskey's vapors waft into my sinuses.

"You gonna need a menu tonight, kid?" Sal asked me. I just sighed and shook my head. He frowned and shrugged, swiped his towel across the well-burnished wood of the bar, then turned to walk away again.

I watched Sal walk over to the opposite end of the bar, his towel thrown over his meaty, rounded shoulder as he leaned over to retrieve another patron's empty pint glass.

_Three months and three days._

I swirled the whiskey in the glass, watching how the amber liquor clung to the inside wall of the tumbler as it slowly made its way back to rejoin the rest.

_Ninety-five days._

I glanced at my watch and sighed.

_Two thousand two hundred and eighty hours._

No matter how many days went by, I'd never gotten used to her being gone.

I missed her every minute of every goddamn day.

Every morning when I woke up alone in our bed with nothing but the cold sheet next to me…

Every night when the only sound in the house was the tick-tick of the antique school clock on the wall opposite our bed, and every minute in between, driving to and from work alone, knowing that I'd come home to an empty house…

Every day, relegated to the bullpen at the Hoover, pushing endless stacks of mind-numbing paperwork that came with my new assignment as an officeless desk-jockey…

Every time they came to confiscate my cell phone so they could run a trace on all my calls…

Every time they came to serve a warrant at our house to replicate the hard drive on my personal laptop…

Every time I went to open up the mail and could tell by extra two-day lag between the post-mark date and that day's date, and the way the flap of the envelope was crinkled, that they'd already checked its contents...

Every time I picked up the phone and could hear that vague hollowness and clicking on the line that told me someone was listening in on the call...

Every time I stood in the kitchen, looking out the window at the oak tree in our backyard. I didn't have it in me to hang up the kiddie swing we'd bought for Christine, or to do anything with the scrap lumber that was stacked up on the back porch, waiting to be assembled into a treehouse...

Every morning when I stood in the shower, my head leaning against the cold tile wall as the hot water pelted my back, and I knew that I had a whole tank's worth of hot water because I was the only one taking a shower that morning…

Every day. Every minute of every day, I felt it.

At first, the pain was paralyzing. I could feel it in my chest, a tightness that made it hurt to breathe or swallow. I held it together on the outside, but inside, I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking over the side. I felt like I was always on the verge of tears, but I'd long since cried everything I had. Hell, I cried myself out that first day, on the steps of the church. I didn't have any tears left. Just a big hole in my chest that ached. And it ached every fucking day.

At some point, the ache itself just became part of the scenery. It didn't go away. I still felt that ache in my chest every minute of every day. It never went away. But it stopped registering in my mind every five seconds. And that's when I knew I was numb.

I missed her.

I missed them both.

Every time it seemed like I couldn't make it another day or another week, I'd realize that another day or week had gone by. And so it went, day after day, week after week.

Another day.

Another night alone.

Another evening squandered watching baseball in the corner of the bar with my friends Sal and Glenfiddich. Sal collected my last empty glass, cleared my tab, and called me a taxi. I left him a ten-spot on the bar and waved goodbye, then walked out to meet my cab. It was a driver I'd used before, an immigrant from Angola named João, a couple of weeks prior when I'd caught a cab back home after toasting my misery with a half-dozen Pabst Blue Ribbons. He greeted me with a curt nod and I gave him the address, then sat back against the cracked vinyl seat and watched with bleary eyes as the city passed me by in a blur until, a few minutes later, I was home.

I climbed into bed that night, sliding in between the high thread-count sheets that she liked so much. As I rolled over and pulled the sheets and comforter over my shoulder, I felt the soft, silky feel of cotton against my naked skin and wished it was something else that was soft and silky against my skin.

I thought about the last night we were together, the night before our daughter's baptism.

Leaning back against the pillows with my hands behind my head, I remembered the way she'd come into the bedroom after feeding Christine and putting her in her crib and slid between the sheets, drawing her body over mine, her smooth, slender thighs moving between mine as her gently-curved belly coasted over my groin. She skated her hands over the outside of my thighs and over my hips, brushing her thumbs around the rim of my belly button before she straddled me. She leaned over, her weight borne by her hands which were drilled into the mattress on either side of my shoulders, and she kissed me. She kissed me, and I kissed her back, our mouths grasping at one another and our tongues tangling until neither of us could hold the kiss anymore, and we broke apart, gasping. She kissed me with a seriousness, a wistfulness almost, and then she took me inside of her. She made love to me that night, filling the room with the sound of her peaking moans as she came around me, again and again, until I could no longer hold myself together, and lost myself in her, the last thread of my self-control breaking seconds before she shattered for the last time. She moaned my name and collapsed against me, and I held her there, against my chest, still inside of her, until I felt our breaths gradually slow and my leg tingled, numb from the way she was laying on top of me.

After a few minutes, she rolled off of me and curled up against my left side, the way she always did, her hand splayed on my chest as I stroked her hair and kissed her forehead, which was damp with sweat. We lay that way for a while, silent and still, before she turned her head and looked up at me.

"You're the strongest man I know, Booth," she said to me in that deliciously low voice I only heard her use in the minutes after we made love.

"What?" I murmured, puzzled by her non-sequitur.

"You are," she said, then fell silent again. I blinked and shook my head a little, pressed another light kiss on her sticky, salty forehead and stroked her hair until I slowly drifted off to sleep.

_You're the strongest man I know, Booth._

Laying there, with an aching hole in my heart, I didn't feel strong.

_You are._

I didn't feel strong. I just felt numb.

I reached for my St. Christopher medal and brought it to my lips, kissing it as if in placing my lips against the cool metal, I'd somehow be able to reach across the miles to God only knows where she was. My lips moved against the tiny carved image of the blessed saint, and I prayed for her.

For them both.

For us.

For me.

_God help me be strong, _I murmured as I let the silver pendant fall back to my chest. _Protect them until I can get them back. Keep them safe for me._

With that prayer on my lips, I drifted off to sleep.

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**A/N: **_Well, there you are. Sort of a sequel to "Empty," my post 7x13 oneshot. Let me know what you think. Please leave a review. It'd really mean a lot to me. Thanks!_

**_Editorial note:_ **_A couple of readers have asked if I'll write a Brennan-centric companion piece to this one. I won't. But my friend and frequent collaborator, _**Lesera128**_, wrote an incredible piece "_**Penance**_" that delves into Brennan's headspace towards the end of her three-month absence. I strongly recommend it to all of you._


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